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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/glendinning06102011.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/glendinning06102011.html<br>
</a></font><div align="right"><font size=2 color="#990000">June 10 - 12,
2011<br><br>
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<h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>The Clutches of
Guernica<br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
Decepción</i> in
Bolivia</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By
CHELLIS GLENDINNING<br><br>
</font><font size=3><i>Cochabamba.<br><br>
</i>A poster of “Guernica” was bursting from the wall, and the umpteenth
Latin American rendition of “My Way” was booming from the record
player. I was sharing a hand-carved table in a Cochabamba
<i>cantina</i> with a cowboy from the Chapare, an anti-capitalist
immigration officer, an anarchist surgeon, and a
<i>barbacoa</i>-restaurateur. All had been supporters of President
Evo Morales’ Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). The conversation was
fiery and, as is normal here in the Andes, its topic was
politics.<br><br>
Despite this particular crowd’s claim to the middle-class, the agreement
among them echoed a truth of Bolivian culture: a tendency to view things
from the perspective of the collective, rather than solely from one’s
perceived interests. <br><br>
And indeed, this conversation echoed other <i>charlas</i> I’d had with
<i>campesinos</i>, taxi-<i>trufi</i> drivers, and union members – and I
need to be straight with you: things are not going well for the
government of Bolivia’s first indigenous leader in 500 years. It
was only a matter of filling in the details – and, in between gulps of
Auténtico beer and Cuban mixed drinks, said details were pouring forth at
the <i>cantina.<br><br>
</i>Then the question was put to me. What did citizens of the
United States think? I had to admit two answers: 1) if my
daily dip into the <i>New York Times</i> provides any indication, people
in the US are basically uninformed about goings-on in Bolivia; and 2) for
US leftists, environmentalists, and climate-change activists, the aura of
hope unleashed by the 2005 election of Evo Morales lingers like perfume
from a Cochabamba jasmine bush.<br><br>
I offer, then, a sweep of an overview of what’s happening and what some
cowboys and <i>campesinos</i>, taxi drivers and rank-and-file, are
thinking.<br><br>
<b>Forked Tongue I: Madre Tierra<br><br>
</b>Out of one tine of what has become the Morales administration’s
two-sided tongue come blood-stirring proclamations like the president’s
empassioned <i>grito</i> “¡Planeta o Muerte!” at the 2010 Cancun climate
change talks. Brilliant. Then there is the stark refusal,
that not even Cuba or Venezuela would match, to sign on to the
watered-down agreement at said talks. And now comes the nation’s
new law proclaiming the rights of Madre Tierra – to some minds, a
legal-philosophic leap forward that, a few decades ago, only
bioregionalists, primitive-anarchists, and traditional Native peoples
could imagine.<br><br>
But, sorry to say, the other spine of the eco-fork must be noted:
<ul>
<li>the launch of genetically-modified agriculture into a countryside
presently free of GMOs;
<li>two under-construction hydro-electric dams 300% bigger than the US’s
Hoover Dam at a cost of $13 billion, slated to channel water to Brazil in
exchange for monies to boost Bolivia’s petro and plastic industries –
this, in a country where many communities have no potable water and
water-borne illnesses are rampant;
<li>in a nation uncontaminated by nuclear radiation: uranium mining, with
future plans for nuclear power plants -- aided by Iran;
<li>blankets of electromagnetic radiation in the form of WiMAX over urban
landscapes – with the state telecommunications corporation bragging of
1350 radiobases in an area the size of Texas and California combined,
with many more to come;
<li>commodity-transporting highways bulldozing through protected nature
reserves whose treasures, in the case of the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de
Moxos road, include eleven endangered species and three Native groups in
60 communities living their traditional hunter-gatherer-fishing lifeways;
<li>new oil excavations;
<li>new gas excavations;
<li>in partnership with Mitubishi, Sumitomo, South Korea, and Iran:
massive lithium development -- threatening leeching, leaks, emissions,
and spills in the world-treasure salt flats;
<li>Bolivia’s own Made-in-China satellite;
<li>with the help of India, the construction of humankind’s largest iron
mine;
<li>900 miles of pipeline slated to transport natural gas to Argentina;
and
<li>an explosion of airport and high-rise construction.
</ul><br>
In other words: full-tilt, high-tech, colossal-scale, high-capital
modernization -- on a Madre Tierra in which such expansion has already
been shown to be The Problem.<br><br>
<b>Forked Tongue II: Democracy<br><br>
</b>Regarding governance, from one side of Bolivia’s forked tongue is
spoken the legal language of <i>plurinationalismo</i>. After
centuries of dictatorships, neoliberal governments, and military juntas,
the 2009 Morales-initiated Constitution legitimizes a form of
decentralized federalism: a reinstatement of decision-making to local
communities, whether defined by place, indigenous heritage, or worker
identity. <br><br>
But, from the other tine of the fork, we encounter unabashed state
centralism – and the stringency of an
If-You’re-Not-With-Us-You’re-Against-Us mentality to reinforce its
dominion. A blazing example of such top-down musculature is the
2010 Christmas Time <i>Gasolinazo</i>: Decreto Supremo #748 in which Vice
President Alvaro Garcia Linera abruptly announced that gasoline and
diesel prices had been jacked up – by as much as <i>83%.</i> (“Joy to the
World” notwithstanding, the violent uprisings that followed rerouted the
government’s hurry to a slower pace of inflation.)<br><br>
But the truth remains: ever since the immediate threat from the right
wing subsided following Morales’ 2009 re-election by 62%, a chronic
refusal to listen to the very social movements the president promised to
follow has posed a disturbing blow to adherents of participatory
democracy. <br><br>
When indigenous groups protest the bulldozing of their lands for the
construction of freeways; when state workers call for increases in
salaries against the reality of galloping food prices; when media workers
fight for freedom of the press against regulations threatening fines and
license suspensions, state control of 20% of the media, and state
ownership of all of it – the administration’s reaction is
knee-jerk.<br><br>
Whether by the vice president or the president himself, citizens
questioning the government’s dictates are received with neither concern
for their suffering nor gratitude for their participation; they are
bold-facedly dismissed as instruments of US imperialism, middle-class
whiners, out of touch, and/or dupes of the right wing.<br><br>
The Who’s famed rock ‘n roll declaration, “Meet the New Boss, Same as the
Old Boss,” comes to mind, and the long-standing trade union congress
Centro Obrera Boliviana (COB) is now seeking to unseat the vice president
for just such a pronouncement aimed at workers.<br><br>
<b>Meet the New Problems, Same as the Old Problems<br><br>
</b>At the same time, Bolivia is rife with chronic problems that,
according to some street-level opinion, the government has failed to
address. <br><br>
Corruption within government is an age-old theme. During the
Morales administration, the most spectacular example occurred in February
2011: the US-Chile-aided arrest of the national <i>jefe</i> of police,
former head of the Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico, and
founder of the Centro de Inteligencia y Generación de Información,
General René Sarabria Oropeza -- caught in the act of opening up cocaine
routes to Miami. His accomplices included a mayor, a military
colonel, and a captain.<br><br>
Another revelation of corruption, moreso perhaps for spiritual interest,
was the June 2010 arrest of Valentín Mejillones, the <i>amauta</i>-priest
who had led the purification ritual of Evo Morales’ inauguration at
Tiawanaku in 2006 – for hosting a cocaine purification factory in his El
Alto home.<br><br>
According to Diego Rada Cuadros, a lawyer whose family was forced to flee
the country during the 1980s dictatorships, in the nation-state boasting
the severest poverty in South America and -- save Haiti – all of Latin
America, a position in government that may last but six years (or, most
probably, less) is a one-shot chance to amass some longer-lasting
<i>plata</i>.<br><br>
Too, while Bolivian <i>coca</i> has been sold for cocaine manufacture
since Vietnam War days, the country is fast becoming a global fount of
cocaine – and this development also feeds popular discontent. In
the tropical Chapare, where the leaf used for cocaine is grown, every
family has a tale of relinquishing food crops to grow the more valuable
produce, giving up agriculture all together to work in a lab, or loaning
out a youth to play lookout at a staggeringly high salary of $200 a
month. <br><br>
According to satellite surveillance reported by the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime and US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), since
Morales launched his presidency, the number of hectares commandeered has
expanded by<i> fútbol</i> fields: by 2008 as many as 28,000 hectares were
ponying up some 130 tons of cocaine, and in 2010 the vice president
divulged that <i>el narcotráfico</i> now contributes $700 million a year
to the national economy. To boot, one out of every 20 workers in
the country is engaged inthe biz.<br><br>
In truth, the location of drug production is most often determined by
international events like droughts, floods, inroads made by drug-war
efforts, and inter-cartel politics – yet many Bolivians contend that
Morales is to blame. In 2008 he threw out the DEA; all the while,
they contend, he was ignoring the expansion of cocaine production as he
blithely touted the sacredness of the <i>coca</i> leaf and pushed for the
right of <i>cocaleros</i> to plant it.<br><br>
<b><i>Decepción</i> and Protest<br><br>
</b>Curiously, in Spanish, the word for “disappointment” is
<i>decepción</i> -- a term that, to the English-speaking ear, does not
merely name a feeling; it proposes a dynamic between inner and outer by
citing the presence of an impacting source. <br><br>
In Bolivia popular <i>decepción</i> was measured in a Radio Fides poll in
February 2011. The sample was conducted in the barrios of La Paz
that are normally a MAS stronghold, and yet a whopping 84% of respondents
reported loss of confidence in the government of Evo Morales, with 80%
saying they’d go for a change. <br><br>
In other words, the red-blue-white <i>chompa-s</i>weaters emulating the
one Morales wore on his 2005 foreign-policy tour -- that every Tomás,
Ricardo, and Hari was sporting in 2006 -- are now totally and completely
… <i>out.<br><br>
</i>Also reflecting growing disappointment is the fact that today’s
Bolivia exists in a near-constant state of disruption due to non-stop
<i>huelga-</i>strikes, <i>paro-</i>stoppages, <i>bloqueo-</i>road blocks,
and <i>manifestacion-</i>demonstrations. Such extreme tactics were
honed during the military dictatorships of the 1960-‘90s to force demands
by taking the economy hostage -- but they fell off during the early,
hope-for-the-best years of the Morales administration.<br><br>
As I pen this essay, the post office is closed down and a road block has
halted overland travel between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Before
that, in April, COB threw nationwide marchesand <i>paros</i> seeking
increases in state medical worker, teacher, and retired incomes to keep
up with inflation.<br><br>
During a (read: <i>peaceful</i>) demonstration by doctors, nurses, and
educators in La Paz, a university professor nearly lost his eye when a
tear-gas canister shattered his glasses. After multiple surgeries –
performed by the on-strike eye doctor in an act of solidarity – he is now
waiting to find out if his sight will return. His comment about the
event: “This is my personal tragedy, yes. But it’s not
isolated. It shows how really bad things are in Bolivia – for all
of us.”<br><br>
From December 2010 through March of 2010, during the worst
global-warming-induced storms -- when for months rain gushed as if being
thrown from a bucket and floods washed over communities like raging
rivers -- the taxi,<i> trufi</i>, and bus <i>choferes</i> and
<i>transportistas</i> shut down what was left of the water-logged economy
with <i>paros,</i> <i>bloqueos,</i> and <i>manifestaciones </i>in all the
major cities of the country.<br><br>
Earlier, in October 2010, when the government began to whittle away at
guarantees for freedom of the press via La Ley Anti-Racismo y Toda Forma
de Discriminación -- ostensibly geared to fight racism and sexism, but
also containing two articles initiating government control over content
-- the nation’s <i>periodistas</i> hit the streets with coffins bearing
microphones and reporter tablets, wrote protest placards with their own
blood, hung like Christ figures from the balconies of buildings,
collected thousands of signatures, and appealed to international press
associations.<br><br>
And in July and August of 2010, the city of Potosí – normally a MAS
bastion – presented Morales with demands to be included in the promised
<i>proceso de cambio</i>-process of change, mounting hunger strikes,
<i>bloqueos,</i> and mobilizations of up to 100,000 protestors.<br><br>
<b>The Clutches of “Guernica”<br><br>
</b>I understand that the information I am laying out may be difficult to
take in – and please know that activists in Bolivia have asked me to tell
their <i>compañeros</i> in the US what is happening here. <br><br>
In a world laden with fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes,
earthquakes, and technological disasters; unending wars over land, oil,
and water; the unfolding of Peak Oil and, frankly, of what scholar
Richard Heinberg calls Peak Everything; a refurbishing of nuclear
technologies and fears of nuclear war; swathes of electromagnetic
radiation from consumer and military installations; increasing corporate
power; decreasing social liberties; out-of-hand control by drug cartels;
cancer epidemics; mass addictions; and growing social chaos – in
<i>this</i> world, hope is a precious thing.<br><br>
When my essay “The Techno-Fantasies of Evo Morales” came out in
CounterPunch (December 24-26, 2010), the messenger was held guilty by a
few -- to me, revealing the distress at losing, or at least calling into
question, the pure promise that Evo Morales’ Bolivia had once
offered. <br><br>
Such distress is not unknown to me. I left an established life in
the US to be part of history in Bolivia, and when I arrived in April
2010, my heart clawed at my throat upon encountering the cynicism and
despair that had replaced 2006’s enthusiasm. <br><br>
But now, if I may muster an iota of the courageous perspective my friend,
the injured professor, has managed: the predicament isn’t isolated.
It shows how bad things are – for <i>all</i> of us.<br><br>
Indeed, the politics of the socio-techno-psycho-economic aggregate known
as empire have had their way. As American scholar Arab Edward Said
has noted, no one in this world has escaped the impacts of imperialist
conquest. And yet, if we acknowledge that a better -- and perhaps
evolutionally built-in way of being human -- is possible, we might also
grasp that the conflicts, contradictions, and conundrum created through
centuries of ripping people from roots in land and community, whether by
force or seduction, have us by toe, throat, and tail.<br><br>
Yes, ours is a world writhing in the clutches of “Guernica,” in which too
many are dancing to the individualism of “My Way.” In such a world,
how does the beautiful, spirited human being blossom out of the
militaristic politics, oversize scale, sterile alienation, and brash
egoism that have, in one way or another, infected every one of us and
every institution in our midst -- <i>including</i> in a mountain land
called Bolivia?<br><br>
I don’t ask my question seeking The Answer -- for, after a lifetime of
participation in the political, cultural, and psychological movements of
our times, I am aware of the multitude of intelligent projects
afoot. I ask my question rather that – if only for a moment – we
may bring awareness and compassion to the sad reality of our world.
<br><br>
<b>Chellis Glendinning</b> is the author of five books, including
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0688072828/counterpunchmaga">
When Technology Wounds</a>,
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865714630/counterpunchmaga">
Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and the Global Economy</a>and
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865715130/counterpunchmaga">
<i>Chiva: A Village Takes on the Global Heroin Trade</a>. </i>She
is Writer-in-Residence at Asociación Jakaña in Cochabamba and may be
contacted via
<a href="http://www.chellisglendinning.org/">
www.chellisglendinning.org</a>.<br><br>
<br><br>
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